Electoral Campaigns Quotes
Television was a new campaign technique and the Democrats had been trying to broadcast entire Stevenson speeches. But the cost was very high and the Republicans who more quickly embraced the new political tool had been producing and running short 30 second and 1 minute advertisement “spots.” This was to the intellectuals of the day a very ethically questionable practice as it resembled advertising and marketing of consumer products. Ball in this quotation told the staff that in order to compete in the then new campaign world of television, the Democrats too would have to use “spots”—political TV advertisements. From this campaign onward, television would become the dominant political communications medium and “spots” became not only acceptable but became the dominant TV technique and the telecasting of entire speeches of the candidates would no longer be broadcast. See candidate Stephenson’s remark about the subject: #
